But only just.
Eclipse, bless their little cotton socks, decided to terminate my DSL connection with extreme prejudice, but unfortunately without any notice. Half past ten last night, the lights went out on the modem. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what had happened, because the Cisco box still showed an active DSL connection, but no login and no data.
No matter, I thought O2 would come through, and they did - at 9.30 this morning, I got a text saying my line was live.
Rush back, plug the new wireless box in, go through the start up - and no phone connection. After the sulks and tantrums passed, I got on to the O2 support line: full marks, guys - an 0800 number and nigh on instant connection, knowledgeable, polite and helpful support staff, passed me to second line without demur - and we agreed the router was faulty.
No matter, thinks I - I have a DG834 sitting upstairs. Maybe I won't get the full benefit of a NTE5 connection and wireless networking, but I should be able to get something working.
The DG834 got a 4000+ kbps link, and could send packets, but nothing came back down the line. This time, I didn't throw anything against the wall, but called O2 support again. Again, kudos to them - they took the fact that I was using an unsupported router without a murmur, worked through as many possibilities as they could come up with, but to no avail. Since neither they nor I know anything worth knowing about this router, and since I couldn't get at t'Internets to find owt out, we were at an impasse and I resigned myself to waiting for the replacement router to arrive. Nearly ninety minutes on the phone and no connection.
Five minutes later - a DNS query worked, and it all came to life. Don't ask - I don't know. We'd been through every variant of the settings possible, and nothing had worked before. However, something must have clicked and I now have a nice, fairly stable (SNR permitting) connection. Hard-wired maybe, but at least it works and I'm no longer isolated, lonely and cut off from what passes for civilisation nowadays.
No comments:
Post a Comment